TITLE: Jump
SPOILER WARNING: Never Again; Triangle
RATING: PG
CONTENT WARNING: Some of the imagery might be disturbing to some people.
CLASSIFICATION: MSR
SUMMARY: VRA
Jump
by Brandon D. Ray
"Come on, Mulder -- let's walk back to the hotel."
"Walk?" Fox Mulder hurried after his partner as she strode purposefully towards
the exit of the Veterans' Hospital. They'd spent most of the last three days in
this building, investigating reports of an apparent haunting, only to have the
whole thing come crashing down when the "mysterious voices" turned out to be a
couple of employees carrying on a secret love affair. All of which left Mulder
feeling more than a little frustrated at having having had to admit that one of
his theories had been proven wrong. And on top of it all it was past midnight
and he just wanted to stretch out somewhere and try to get some rest --
"Yes, walk," she said, slowing only briefly to allow the automatic sliding doors
to get out of her way. "We haven't had nearly enough exercise this week."
"But what about the rental car?"
"It'll still be here in the morning, and we can walk back and pick it up. The
exercise --"
"-- will be good for us." He sighed, then gasped slightly as they stepped
outside and the cold wind hit them. "Scully," he said, "it's cold out here."
"It's nearly forty degrees," she replied, leading the way through the parking
lot and towards the street. "And this is Iowa and it's January. That means it
could very easily be forty degrees BELOW zero. Looked at from that perspective,
this is positively balmy."
"There's something wrong with that logic, but I'm too tired to figure it out,"
he complained. He almost bumped into her as she suddenly stopped at the foot of
the driveway. He backed off a step or two and watched as she looked first one
way and then the other. It seemed as if she wasn't sure which way to go, and
finally he said, "Left. The hotel is to the left."
She turned and looked at him over her shoulder, and arched an eyebrow at him.
"Thanks, Mulder. I wasn't sure which way, but now I am." And she turned
resolutely to the right, and again he had to hurry to catch up with her.
"Scully," he said, trying hard not to sound as if he were whining. "Scully,
we're going the wrong way."
"No we're not," she replied over her shoulder. "The hotel's this way." She
looked back to the front and pointed. "See? There's the river already."
Mulder peered ahead in the darkness and saw that she was right. He sighed and
ran a few steps, finally catching up with her and falling into step as they came
to a curve in the road they were following. The bridge across the river loomed
a few hundred yards ahead, and he took some comfort in that as he realized that
it meant they were only eight or ten blocks from the hotel.
The two friends walked in silence for a few minutes, while Mulder tried to
figure out what had gotten into his partner. She'd been acting strange for a
couple of weeks now, and for the life of him he couldn't figure out what was
going on inside that mind of hers. It sort of reminded him of how she'd behaved
before that fiasco in Philadelphia two years ago -- there was the same feeling
of wildness and lack of control -- but at the same time it was different. It
was almost as if this time she was turning TOWARDS him rather than AWAY from
him....
He cut the thought off firmly. He'd long ago given up on thinking about that
particular extreme possibility. He knew he was in love with Dana Scully; he'd
known it for a long time. Years. But he'd given her ample opportunity to
demonstrate whether or not she shared those feelings -- including a flat out
declaration of his love as he lay in a hospital bed last fall -- and she had
chosen not to pursue the matter. So be it. He could content himself with her
friendship. That in itself was a gift beyond price.
The highway they were following had turned and was now paralleling the river.
There was very little traffic, and no other pedestrians at all, and it was easy
to believe that they were the only people awake in the entire city. Mulder had
always liked that feeling -- the feeling of quiet and solitude that fell over a
city late at night. It was one of the big reasons he had become such a night
owl -- because it was one of the more effective ways he had of escaping from the
sometimes smothering burden of interacting with his fellow human beings.
Except for Scully, of course. She was never a burden to him.
At length they came to the Burlington Street bridge, and Mulder followed in
silence as his partner turned left and led them out onto the bridge and over the
river. He was so lost in his own ruminations that for a moment he did not
notice that she was no longer walking at his side.
He stopped walking and turned and looked back the way they had come. He was
roughly halfway across the bridge, and she was about ten yards behind him,
leaning against the railing and looking out over the water. Mulder stood
looking at her for a moment, and for what must have been at least the thousandth
time in their association he found himself lost in admiration for her. She was
so strong and self-assured, and so intelligent. That was what had really
attracted him to her in the first place, he thought -- her driving,
uncompromising intelligence, and her dedication to the truth. Not that she
didn't have other desireable qualities --
"Come look at the water with me," she called, cutting him off in mid-thought,
and he realized he'd been standing there staring at her, and he hurried forward
to join her at the railing and turned and looked out over the river.
It really was lovely tonight, he had to admit. Mulder was not one to be overly
ga-ga over "the wonders of nature", and in his more introspective moments he was
able to admit, at least to himself, that this was due at least in part to his
own self-absorption. But the sight of the water flowing along in its banks,
rushing towards them and disappearing under the bridge beneath their feet,
seemed dark and mysterious, and more than a little exciting, and for a few
minutes he just leaned against the railing next to his partner, looking out at
the water.
"I've always loved running water," Scully said at last, her voice soft and
dreamy. "It's always seemed special somehow; magic. You don't know where it's
been, and you don't know where it's going. All you know is the few brief
seconds it takes to flow past you, and then it's gone." She paused for a
moment, and Mulder glanced at her. She was still staring out across the water,
her face soft and open. Her eyes seemed to be looking at things that no one
else could see, and for some reason he felt his pulse quicken at the
realization.
She started speaking again. "But we're really on the wrong side of the bridge,
you know?" She turned her head briefly to glance at him, and then looked back
to the water. "We shouldn't be looking upstream; looking upstream means looking
into the past, and while that can be interesting and sometimes necessary, it
isn't really what humans ought to spend most of their time doing."
Suddenly she turned away from the river and strode quickly out across the six
lane highway running across the bridge. Mulder felt his eyebrows shoot up in
surprise, and he turned and ran after her, glancing quickly both ways to make
sure that no cars were coming. He caught up with her just as she reached the
sidewalk on the other side, and in another instant the two of them were leaning
against the rail on that side, and staring out over the water again.
"This is where we really belong," Scully said as Mulder struggled to catch his
breath. "This is the way we ought to be looking. Downstream. Always
downstream. Looking downstream means you're looking towards the future." She
paused for a moment, then lifted her arm and pointed. "See? The water flows
out from under the bridge. We don't know where it's been or how it got here,
but it doesn't really matter. It flows out from under the bridge, and then it
flows over the dam and past the power plant, and after that there's a bend in
the river and we can no longer see where it goes, but in our minds we already
know."
She turned and looked at him inquiringly, seemingly asking him if he was
following her. Mulder nodded slowly; he was too fascinated at the idea of
exploring this unexpected side of Dana Scully to ask her to stop, and after a
moment she nodded back, and then turned to look out over the water again.
"The water flows past the power plant," she repeated. "And then it disappears
from our line of sight. But that doesn't mean it's gone. The water is still
out there, still flowing, still going places. And after awhile the river
empties into a bigger river, and then perhaps that river empties into a still
bigger river. And finally the water finds its way to the sea."
Mulder nodded again slowly, although he knew she wasn't looking at him. The sea
had always been a powerful symbol for her; he knew that much. At least in part
it was because it stood in her mind for her father, but now he was coming to
suspect that there was even more to it than that. He didn't know what the sea
meant to her, exactly, but he knew it was something important. Something vital.
"Are you ever tempted to jump?"
He turned and looked at her, surprised at the sudden apparent change in topic.
She had turned away from the water, and now was looking up at him intently,
searching his face, looking for...something.
"Jump?" he asked. "Jump where?"
She continued to look at him, staring up into his eyes in the darkness, and
suddenly he felt a chill race down his spine. "Jump into the water," she
replied at last. "Over the railing and into the water. When you're walking
over a bridge, or standing at the rail of a ship, aren't you ever tempted just
to climb over the rail and jump?"
He thought about that one for a moment. He suddenly wasn't so sure he liked the
direction the conversation was heading after all, but he had long since given up
lying to her. Finally, he said, "Of course I have. That's a natural urge. I
get the same feeling sometimes when I'm on the observation deck of a tall
building. It can be a very seductive feeling, just to let go like that. But I
don't do it."
She nodded thoughtfully, and continued to look into his face for just another
moment before turning to look back out over the water again. "It is seductive,"
she agreed. "Very, very seductive, sometimes." There was just a hint of
amusement in her voice, and Mulder wasn't at all sure he liked that, either.
She was acting really strange this evening; she was saying some really strange,
unScullylike things, and she was starting to worry him.
He cleared his throat. "Scully? Shouldn't we be getting back to the hotel?
It's almost one in the morning." She didn't seem to hear him, and after a
minute he said, "Scully?"
"When you jump you lose control," she said. "You completely lose control.
Gravity takes over, and a few seconds later you plunge into the water, and for
just an instant you think you might sink all the way to the bottom and drown.
But then the water buoys you up and supports you, and it carries you away. But
still you have no control. You have to go wherever the water takes you. Over
the dam and past the power plant, and on and on and on, past towns and villages,
into the bigger river and then the still bigger river, and finally all the way
to the sea."
"Scully?" This was really starting to bother him. He wished she would stop; he
wished she would snap out of whatever state she was in. He couldn't ever
remember seeing her like this, and he didn't like it.
"You'd float awhile in the shallows," she went on, softly, dreamily. "You'd be
pulled this way and that by the eddies and currents close to the shore. You
might eventually be washed up on the beach, and that would be too bad. But if
you were lucky....if you were lucky you'd finally drift out of sight of land,
and be lost in the vastness of the ocean."
"Scully," he said, carefully suppressing the nervousness from his voice.
"Scully, please stop. You're starting to scare me a little."
She was silent for a moment, her expression unreadable. Finally, she said, "You
should be scared, Mulder. You're right to be scared. I'm thinking some very
dangerous thoughts tonight, and it's only natural that you should be scared."
She turned to look at him again, and her voice grew even softer, and Mulder had
to strain to hear her. "If I decided to do something dangerous, Mulder, would
you let me do it? If I decided to jump, right now, would you try to stop me?
Or would you let me go?"
"I...I guess that would depend on the circumstances," he said. "I value your
friendship; you know that. I would hate to lose that." He thought about it for
a moment, and tried to keep the fear he felt at the direction the conversation
was taking from overwhelming him. "I guess if I was sure you understood what
you were doing, I'd have to let you go." She continued to look at him, and
another thought came unbidden, and before he had a chance to second guess
himself he added, "Maybe I'd jump with you."
Still she looked up at him, and again seemed to be searching his face. At last,
she nodded slowly. "That's a good answer, Mulder. That's a very good answer."
And she turned and looked out over the water again.
After another minute of silence she started speaking again. "We can change the
course of the river, you know." Her voice now held a meditative quality.
"Obviously, we can change the course of the river." She gestured downstream.
"There's the dam, for instance -- but that's a big change, obvious to anyone.
The other changes are less obvious." She suddenly squatted down and felt along
the pavement, finally standing up again and holding out her hand to show him
that she'd found a small stone before turning and flinging it out into the
river.
"See?" she said. "I just changed the course of the river. Now the stone will
settle to the bottom, and the water will have to flow around it instead of
flowing straight through the space it now occupies. That will set up eddies and
side currents, and before very long the entire river will be changed, different.
You won't be able to measure it; no one will ever be able to see the difference
in the river. But the river will be changed nonetheless, and all because of the
stone I chose to throw into the water."
Mulder nodded. "Chaos theory," he said.
Scully nodded as well, still staring out at the rushing water. "That's right.
A butterfly beating its wings in Peking can cause a thunderstorm in New York,
and no one can ever make the connection, because there are just too many
variables."
She fell silent for a moment, and her hands began caressing the railing they
were leaning against.. Then she said, "It's one of the wonderful things about
being human, isn't it? That we can make deliberate changes in the things around
us. It's such a wonderful gift, and often we use it so unwisely." She turned
her head and looked at him until he nodded in assent, and then she turned to
look back at the water again. "We can make deliberate changes," she said. "But
we can never anticipate all the consequences of those changes. I think that's
why we make so many bad decisions; because we don't know what the future holds,
and that makes us afraid. But being afraid is no excuse for making bad
decisions, is it?"
Mulder shook his head, and then realized that she wasn't looking at him and
therefore hadn't seen the gesture. "No," he said. "No, it isn't." He was
startled to discover that somewhere in the last few minutes his fear had
evaporated, and now he was suffused with a feeling of acceptance. Whatever was
about to happen was about to happen, and he would stay with the ride to the very
end. Good or bad.
"There are so many possibilities in the future," she said. "In the next five
minutes, anything can happen. Anything at all." She turned her head again and
glanced briefly up at him, and then looked away, back once again to the rushing
water. "The most likely possibility, of course, is that we'll talk for a few
more minutes, and then we'll turn and finish walking across the bridge and back
up the hill to the hotel. And we'll go to our respective rooms and try to get
some sleep, and in the morning we'll go to the airport and fly back to
Washington. That's the most likely future for us, wouldn't you say?"
"I suppose so," Mulder said.
"There are other possibilities, though," she went on. "Perhaps on our way back
to the hotel we'll be hit by a drunk driver and left to die. Or perhaps we'll
be found in time and rushed to the emergency room, where the doctors and nurses
will struggle to save our lives. And perhaps they'll succeed. Or perhaps they
won't."
"I suppose that's possible, too," he agreed, keeping his voice carefully
neutral. She was starting to scare him again, but something told him it would
be best to keep that to himself for the moment.
"Then there are the other possibilities," she said, turning away from the water
to face him. There was a sense of finality to her movement, and he suddenly
realized, somehow, that the conversation was almost over. "The really extreme
possibilities. We could be struck by a meteor. Or we could be abducted by
little gray men from Reticula. Or we could decide to go for a long, long walk
out in the country, and not come back until dawn, and then the possibilities
really begin to open up." She paused for just a moment, and took a step closer
to him, and she reached out and laid a gentle hand on one of his where it rested
on the railing. "Or we could decide to jump."
Mulder stood absolutely still, staring down at her, barely breathing. Her eyes
were dark and unreadable, and her expression....her expression was
indescribable. He wasn't getting anything off of her, not anything at all. She
seemed to be poised. Waiting.
Finally he said, very softly, "Yes. Yes, we could jump."
She nodded slightly in apparent approval. "I want to jump, Mulder. I've been
walking across bridges my entire life, and now I want to jump. But I don't want
to be alone. Will you jump with me?" And she took another step towards him,
until their bodies were almost touching.
"Yes, Scully. Of course I'll jump with you. You know that."
And again she nodded slightly, and for just an instant the air between them
seemed to crackle with electricity. And then she went up on her toes and kissed
him, and Mulder felt himself being swept up and away, almost as if they were
floating over the rail and then falling down towards the rushing water below.
In another instant they would plunge into the water and plummet towards the
bottom, still locked in an embrace, and perhaps they would never come up.
Perhaps they would drown. But he was in her arms, at last, and he couldn't make
himself care about anything other than the woman he was kissing.
After a timeless interval their lips separated, and Mulder realized that he'd
slipped his arms around her as well, and now was holding her close against him.
He looked down at her and smiled, and she smiled back up at him. "See?" she
said. "That wasn't so bad."
"I never thought it would be," he replied, and then he released her and took her
hand, and they turned and walked on across the bridge and up the hill to the
hotel. And the water buoyed them both up, and carried them over the dam and
past the power plant, on and on and on, past the towns and villages, into the
bigger river and then the still bigger river, and finally all the way to the
sea.
Fini